Hay There

The snow in Northern Iceland is taking longer than normal to go away this year, which is having an adverse affect on farmers there. Normally the sheep would have been let out to roam and graze by now, but instead farmers are being forced to keep them inside on the farm and buy hay to feed them. This article from Vísir tells of one such farm in Svarfaðardalur which raises cows in addition to sheep.

“The couple at Steindyr in Svarfaðardal have both cows and sheep at their farm. The sheep started giving birth three weeks ago but they are still being kept inside and in pens at the barn. Due to the snowfall they don’t see any way to let the sheep out into the fields any time in the near future.”

Unsurprisingly there are a lot of farm-related words in the article, and cows and sheep are the primary livestock found in Iceland, so you run into those words a lot:

kýr (f) – cow

singular

plural

nom

kýr

kýr

acc

kú

kýr

dat

kú

kúm

gen

kýr

kúa

sauðfé (n) – sheep

singular

nom

sauðfé

acc

sauðfé

dat

sauðfé

gen

sauðfjár

Note that kýr has the ý->ú vowel change. I think the word sauðfé might be used more specifically for sheep, with fé being a more general term for livestock. A ewe is ær, while a ram is hrútur. There is also the word kind for sheep.

ær (f) – ewe

singular

plural

nom

ær

ær

acc

á

ær

dat

á

ám

gen

ær

áa

hrútur (m) – ram

singular

plural

nom

hrútur

hrútar

acc

hrút

hrúta

dat

hrúti

hrútum

gen

hrúts

hrúta

It’s interesting that ær declines in a similar way to kýr but with a different vowel change, á->æ.

“‘We’ve just been bringing them in at night and keep them in this little enclosure during the day. The fences are still buried (in snow) so the sheep will immediately look for a way out. So you have to bring them inside at night so they don’t get out on the road or into a ditch, and you don’t lose lambs because of that,’ says Gunnhildur Gylfadóttir, farmer at Steindyrum í Svarfaðardal.”

að reka – to drive

present

past

ég

rek

rak

þú

rekur

rakst

það

rekur

rak

við

rekum

rákum

þið

rekið

rákuð

þau

reka

ráku

að missa – to lose

present

past

ég

missi

missti

þú

missir

misstir

það

missir

missti

við

missum

misstum

þið

missið

misstuð

þau

missa

misstu

The verb að reka can mean drive, as in a herd of animals, or also run or operate, as in a business. Don’t be confused by missa – it means lose in this instance, not miss.

“The weather conditions increase the workload for the farmers as well as the cost of farming.

‘That is a heavy burden as perhaps some have had to spend two million (kronur) on hay. It makes a big difference to your wallet when you might also have other large expenses because of this hard spring. Like the fences and large seed purchases if the fields need to be reworked,’ says Gunnhildur, whose bales of hay cost ten or eleven thousand kronur.”